


auld acquaintence

by elizajane



Series: On the Strength of the Evidence [28]
Category: Grantchester (TV)
Genre: Consensual Infidelity, Established Relationship, Extended Families, F/F, F/M, Found Families, M/M, New Year's Eve, Porn With Plot, Unconventional Families
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 13:47:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10107428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizajane/pseuds/elizajane
Summary: "Shhh," Cathy says. "It's past one in the morning, and we'll answer Esme's questions when she's old enough to ask them. Right now I'm tired and I'm getting cold, and I believe I asked you to take me to bed."Caro leans into Cathy's finger and whispers, "Make me."Cathy smiles.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This falls directly after [chapter nine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9037490/chapters/21863006) of _love be yours and love be mine_.
> 
> Just doing my part to put more f/f orgasms into the world.

The grandfather clock on the landing announces one o’clock as Cathy gently shuts the door on her sleeping girls and feels her way down the unlit hallway to the room two doors down that she and Caroline share when they’re at the Mackenzie’s townhouse on Charlotte Square. The last of the Hogmany guests have departed, and only the faintest sounds drift up the stairwell from the second floor where the household staff are clearing away the champagne flutes and fine china.

Caro is reading in bed, one of the mystery novels Cathy has left behind over the years. Cathy recognizes the cover as a Christie she remembers, vaguely, reading not long after Ivy was born.

“I saw you talking to your cousin Helen,” she says, stepping out of her heels with a sigh of relief and putting her gloves down on the dressing table. She reaches up to remove the pearl earrings that Caro had insisted she wear with the green taffeta.

“Helen is a bore,” Caro says, without looking up from the page she isn't reading.

It's a short, clipped reply -- a habit of speech that grows more pronounced the longer they remain in Edinburgh. Cathy waits for the space of a weary heartbeat before Caro turns a page and it's clear she isn't in the mood to say more, then sits down at the dressing table to pull the pins from her hair.

"We'll be off the day after tomorrow -- tomorrow, in fact," she amends. It's past midnight, New Year's Day, and the sun will rise in a handful of hours. The first sunrise of 1955.

"Not bloody soon enough," Caro mutters, shutting the book with a snap and tossing it toward the end of the bed. She passes her hands over her face -- Cathy watches the movement in the shadows of the vanity mirror -- and drops them to the hill of her knees beneath the bedspread.

"I'm sorry, love," Caro says with a sigh, "I didn't mean to leave you alone downstairs to cope."

Cathy drops the last of the pins in the porcelain dish on the vanity and twists in her seat, "I had Uncle Laurie to look after me," she points out. Though he'd left at half past eleven. She won't tell Caro that she hand rung in the new year on the front step where she'd gone for a bit of air and solitude. "Come unhook me?" She turns back to the mirror and lifts her hair from the back of her neck where the fastenings on the back of her gown are at just the wrong place to reach herself.

Caro throws the bedclothes back and pads across the carpet barefoot. Cathy is pleased to see she has put on only the top of her pyjamas, leaving her lovely long, pale legs easily accessible. As Caro steps behind Cathy’s chair to help with the dress, Cathy reaches a practiced hand back and slides a palm proprietorially up the back of Caro's thigh. "Mmm."

"Mmm?" Caro responds, bending down to press a kiss against Cathy's temple as she unhooks the fastenings of Cathy's gown with practiced fingers, then encourages the loosened bodice of Cathy's dress down over her shoulders with a sweep of cool palms. Cathy leans back against Caro's comfortable solidity, tipping her head up to encourage Caro to stoop down over her for a _thank you for being here_ kiss.

These visits to Charlotte Square are complicated for them both in different ways. For Cathy, Edinburgh and Ardanalaish are the places where she was first welcomed into Caro's family, where she and Caro first had real freedom and privacy to discover what they were to one another: here the hall closet where they'd first kissed, here the bedroom where Cathy had given Caro her first orgasm, here the bed where -- for a few precious weeks per year -- they sleep in eachothers' arms for more than a night or two running.

It isn't that she is glad Geordie stays behind. He doesn't, always. But more often than not when they’re in Scotland it's her, and Caro, and the children, and Cathy ending each day in Caro's arms. Sleeping curled snug against Caro’s spine, or tucked against Caro’s side, or with Caro draped over her back, leg pushed proprietarily between Cathy’s thighs just happens here, without having to ask if Geordie’s needed for a night shift, without having to wake before daybreak to cycle back from Cambridge. For a short window of time they’re living together, with the ease of daily intimacy, in a way they haven’t since she and Geordie moved into the house in Grantchester. It feels like such a gift.

But for Caro, being in Edinburgh means time with Mildred and Ian, and the rest of the Mackenzies.

"Take me to bed," Cathy says, contentedly, letting her chin fall so she can watch Caro's deft hands at work in the vanity mirror. She likes to see herself in Caroline's hands, watch how her own cheeks begin to flush, her nipples respond to the chill air of an Edinburgh winter night as Caro lifts them, one by one, free of Cathy’s brassiere and satin slip so they’re in full view in the glass as she drags her hands back over Cathy's shoulders to finish with the hooks and eyes.

Caro pulls Cathy to her feet, then, so she can step out of her dress and slip where they pools to the floor and Caro can kneel to undo her garters and roll down her nylon stockings.

"I'm sorry your mother has been so difficult this year," Cathy murmurs, pushing her hands into Caro's dark curls, massaging Caro’s skull with her fingers. Ever since Mildred had found out -- through the friend of a friend who was married to member of the Chemistry faculty -- that Caroline turned down an offer from the University of Edinburgh, she has been on a steady campaign to remind Caroline of all the myriad ways she falls short as an unmarried daughter.

Cathy has renewed reason to give silent thanks during Sunday prayers for the degree of independence afforded by Great-Aunt Sallie's gift to her bluestocking grand-niece when she had passed in ‘42 at the age of 93. Because of Great-Aunt Sallie -- whom Cathy always suspected understood exactly who Cathy was in Caro’s life -- Caro’s parents will never be able to threaten a withdrawn allowance in the face of non-compliance. Between the inheritance, and what money Geordie and Caroline bring in, their queer little family won’t have to decide between solvency and self-determination.

Though, of course, Mildred and Ian have never understood -- and Cathy expects they never will -- that Caro, their spinster daughter, now has a family of her own.

"It hasn't been only mother," Caro mutters darkly as she rolls Cathy's stockings down. Cathy lifts one foot and then the other so Caro can pull them off. "Didn't you hear them? I couldn't bear to listen to _one more_ bloody idiot tell me how _good_ it was of me to bring you and the children here. As if you were some sort of charity project."

"That's nothing new, darling," Cathy says, because it isn't. Since they were schoolgirls together, Caro's relatives have looked upon her as an opportunity for beneficence: an adopted poor relation who through good luck also seemed to have a leveling influence on their rather high-spirited granddaughter (or daughter, or niece).

Caro sits back on her heels, "You shouldn't have to hear it," she says. "The _children_ shouldn't have to hear it."

"The children," Cathy reminds her, as she reaches down a hand to pull Caro to her feet, "were in bed long before dinner was served."

"You say that as if my mother confines her remarks to moments when the girls are out of earshot. Esme already --" Cathy cuts Caro off with a finger to her lips.

" _Shhh_ ," she says. "It's past one in the morning, and we'll answer Esme's questions when she's old enough to ask them. Right now I'm tired and I'm getting cold, and I believe I asked you to take me to bed."

Caro leans into Cathy's finger and whispers, "Make me."

Cathy smiles.

For as long as they've been lovers, Caro and Cathy have rarely had the luxury of wasting private time together; until the last half-dozen years of their settled, adult lives, lovemaking has had to happen in brief snatches of borrowed time and place. Only since Caro bought and refurbished the _Natalie_ has their privacy been more secure, their nights together a near-weekly occurrence. The house in Charlotte Square, this bedroom, still evokes for Cathy the years when she would count down the days until school holidays and the blessed window of time when she had Caro all to herself behind closed doors.

She reaches down to lend a hand as Caro stands, then takes advantage of the contact to pull Caro closer and slide her palms down over Caro’s shoulder blades, ribcage, the curve of her hips and the swell of her ass -- then back up under Caro's pyjama shirt so she can mould her hands to Caro's hips and steer her backwards to the large four-poster bed. The small reading lamp on Caro’s side of the bed is still on, throwing shadows across the brocade coverlet and worn cotton sheets, mussed from Caro’s earlier sulking. Caroline lets herself fall backward against the pillows as Cathy crowds her up against the edge of the mattress, then reaches out to pull Cathy onto the bed after her. Cathy goes willingly and settles herself astride Caro's hips, enjoying the way Caro reflexively pushes her pelvis up against Cathy’s inner thighs as she settles her weight just _so_.

Cathy leans over Caro in the way she knows Caro likes, bracketing Caro's shoulders with her hands firmly planted on the mattress. Caro brings her hands up to Cathy's breasts, the way Cathy knew she would, pressing up with open palms, thumbing across nipples sensitive from cold and confinement in structured undergarments.

"I had to spend the evening looking at you in that dress," Caro murmurs.

"And now you're the only one who's allowed to see me out of it," Cathy responds. It's an old push and pull between them, words first formed at the school formals where they were meant to mingle and drink punch with the boys from St. Eustace's, repeated through the years at every dance hall they visited during the war. Cathy might dance the jitterbug with half a dozen soldiers but at the end of the night it would be Caro, if it was anyone, who slid her hands up under the skirt of Cathy's dress just to remind them both that the seams of her non-existent stockings were painted on.

" _Mmm_ ," Caro hums in agreement, lifting her head to pull one of Cathy's nipples into her mouth so she can nip it, gently but firmly, between her teeth. "If only they knew how lucky I truly am,” she says, with satisfaction. “They’d be as green as your dress with jealousy.”

Cathy laughs and settles in to the pleasure of Caro's pleasure, feeling Caro’s tongue and lips and teeth nip and suck and trace kisses across first one breast and then the other, before she slides her hands down from Cathy’s heavy breasts to her hips and urges Cathy over on her side, against the pillows, so Caro can slide a hand between her thighs.

It's a sweet luxury, the bed here in Edinburgh, wide enough to reach and sprawl without washing up against the mahogany panels of curving cabin walls. She feels Caro's long fingers pressing in one, then two, then three. Cathy's weary from the day, the week, the season. She sinks into the way her body responds to familiar touches, lifting and adjusting her hips, a hand at the nape of Caro's neck to urge her closer and up for a kiss.

When her orgasm comes it's a quiet one, a building wave of sensation that she lets herself chase out along the pull of Caro's fingers until she can't stand any more and she's scrabbling with uncoordinated hands to catch and hold Caro right where she wants her to stay.

They've learned to read each other in silences over the years; rarely has privacy been out of earshot of people who mustn't know. The silence, now, is sleepy and contented though Cathy is aware of the way Caro, tucked up against her, is still very much awake.

Cathy presses her face in against the curve of Caro's neck where the scent of sweat and soap overlays the lingering notes of Caro's perfume, the L’Air du Temps that Cathy likes to borrow. Caro has offered to buy Cathy her own bottle but Cathy always says no because it would be different, using a fragrance that will never touch Caro's skin even if the scent is the same. This way, on mornings after she's stayed the night in Cambridge she can rise early, wash, dress, and cycle away knowing she will carry the smell of Caro with her: a secret rubbed into her skin.

Cathy likes other scents of Caro’s, too. She drags a languid post-coital palm down Caro's sternum, between her breasts, over the curve of her ribs and the soft rise of her belly, pushes her fingers through the thick, dark, damp curls between Caro's thighs.

Caro sighs at the touch, a release, and lets her legs fall open in wordless invitation.

The house is silent and still, even the wind that has been whipping through the streets of New Town has calmed. Faintly, far below on the street, Cathy can hear the sound of a motorcar, the bark of a dog roused by something in the night. The children will be up in a few hours, rousing her from sleep, and the servants down below will be preparing the morning breakfast to be served in the dining room, buffet style, as the family wakes.

The house is full tonight; members of the extended Mackenzie clan staying over rather than disburse back to their own residences. They'll be trailing in to a fashionably late morning meal and then -- like Caro, Cathy, and the children -- departing on trains or by car until it's only Mildred and Ian left, rattling around the big house on their own. Cathy might feel sorry for them, except for the fact that they both seem to appreciate the order that comes with leading their largely separate lives: Mildred with her charity and social occupations, Ian enjoying his retirement from public life on the links, with the occasional stint in London consulting on colonial affairs.

Cathy sometimes wonders what it would have been like, had her parents lived long enough to retire to England at the end of the war. As it is, between herself, Caroline, Geordie -- and now Sidney -- there's only Mildred and Ian left. The children will grow up knowing her sister Tess, recently married herself and now living in Portsmouth, and -- she hopes one day -- Jenny, Johnny, and the children they might have. Geordie has family still, but refuses to take the children to meet his brother's family in Leeds -- and given what he’s told Cathy of his childhood she doesn't press. Mildred and Ian, however flawed, will be the only grandparents their children know.

All of these interrelationships filter like sand through Cathy's mind as she enjoys the envelope of quiet that cocoons them here, in Caroline's bedroom -- the bedroom they have always shared -- in the bed that has always been _theirs_ , together, holding their secrets. Cathy knows, and appreciates, the way Caro chafes against the Mackenzie family story of benevolence, of charity. Of Caroline herself as the benefactress of Cathy and Geordie's _not quite our kind, dear_ family. Cathy, the school friend-turned-constable’s wife, brought up to Edinburgh to play at being - however briefly -- the sort of woman that Caro’s cousin Helen might run into at the club. Cathy is content to let this story spin its web of protection around them; it keeps her family safe, and allows them nights like this.

Cathy can feel the small, restless shifts Caro is making against her, the way her muscles seize and release deep inside as Cathy works her fingers -- one, then another, -- at that particular angle that makes Caro offer up her little almost-audible sounds of satisfaction. The ones that are more vibration than noise. Cathy smiles to herself as the shifts her hand and pushes in further, sliding a slick thumb up along the line of Caro's clit, circling, in a rhythm as familiar as her own breathing.

Her body, post-coital and long ready for sleep, nevertheless responds to the motion, ghosts of sensation echoing in the cant of her hips, the ache deep in her belly. She turns her face against Caro's shoulder, only to remember that the fabric of Caro's pajama shirt is still a barrier.

"One second, love," she whispers, as she pulls her hand back and Caro lets out a low whine of frustration. "I just want to --"

It had begun, long ago, as a game to see where they might leave marks that no one else could see. During the war, when the harsh edge of mortality haunted every brief meeting, it had become a more solemn ritual. It's been many years, now, since they refused to part without hidden bruises -- but it's still something they share. Geordie's the only one who's seen Cathy's bruises, and he only asked the once whether or not they were wanted. When she’d looked him straight in the eye and said _yes_ , he had accepted the answer with a nod, and not asked a second time.

Cathy unbuttons Caro's pajama front, parting the sides to bare Caro's breasts to the chill of the bedroom. She's getting cold herself, now that the heat of her own orgasm has passed, but soon enough they'll have time to crawl beneath the blankets and warm each other for the remainder of the night. Caro watches her in the dim, slanting light of the bedside lamp.

She finds the soft skin just where she wants it at the groove of Caro's shoulder joint, the place just above where her breast begins to rise: The place where Cathy can suck a deep, purple bruise and no one but the two of them will see. When her lips touch pale winter skin, Caro exhales, her hand comes up to skim down Cathy's bare shoulders as Cathy seals the kiss and stretches out her right hand, blindly, to resume the slide, a slick circle -- forcing Caro to pay attention to both the aching pain of the bruise and the tug of pleasure between her legs.

It's only moments before Caro comes beneath Cathy's hands, muscles pulling tight and body arching up and toward Cathy where she kneels holding fast with lips and teeth, palms and fingers.

"Wicked," Caro says, thickly, minutes later after Cathy has found her own pajamas and arranged the bedclothes to keep them both warm in sleep.

"Mmm?" Cathy is already mostly asleep.

"You've made it impossible for me to wear anything but one of my most conservative blouses to breakfast tomorrow," Caro says, and Cathy can tell she's smiling. "And I was good and didn't leave a mark on you."

"Shame," Cathy says, with a yawn, as she curls in against Caro's back, reveling in the warmth. "You'll just have to find a way to correct your work in the morning."


End file.
